AN INVESTIGATION OF THE IMPACT OF A STEM PROGRAM ON STUDENTS’ KNOWLEDGE ON INTEREST IN STEM

The objective of the study was to investigate middle school students’ attitudes towards Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM), as well as their knowledge about engineering practices. A quantitative design was employed with a total of 51 participants randomly assigned to two conditions. 24 students took a STEM elective course and the other 27 an equivalent course with a career focus on forensics as a career. Over nine weeks participants took a pre and post survey on attitudes and completed a project that was assessed using a common rubric. The results on gains in student attitude were mixed. On the overall gains, the STEM course had no effect, while the forensics course had a negative gain (p A rubric was used to assess knowledge of engineering practices in both the forensic and STEM courses. The results showed a significant difference in the category “Analyzing and Interpreting Data” (p= 0.003). Looking at each engineering practice for both classes combined “Defining problems” and “Obtaining, Evaluating, and Communicating Information” were both significantly higher (p The mean scores of males and females were compared between the classes. Females were significantly better at the practice of “Developing and Using Models” than males with (p =0.04). Males significantly thought that they learn just as well online as in the classroom compared to females who claimed they learn better in the classroom (p =0.041)

Mapu Lahual: Ecotourism and Indigenous Rights in Chile

Abstract: This thesis will assess the efforts of international organizations (IGOs) and international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) to facilitate self-determination and economic independence for the indigenous Mapuches peoples in Chile. My hypothesis is that both IGOs and INGOs to a great extent have helped indigenous peoples gain substantive rights in Chile. When analyzing Chilean progress in indigenous rights, three topic areas were identified. The first considers how the constitutional frameworks support indigenous rights and what rights are guaranteed or hindered due the Chilean 1980 constitution. The second is the economic inclusion and independence of the tribes or communities. Ecotourism projects have been implemented in Chile to help develop and conserve the environment, the economy and indigenous culture. How well do economic projects and land reform policy help give indigenous people substantive economic independence will be considered. The third is the political inclusion of indigenous people within the Chilean state. To what extent do indigenous peoples have a place in decision-making positions or have a role in making national policy? I will further address the intersection of indigenous peoples, territorial rights, eco-tourism, and international human rights with respect to national governments, international organizations and nongovernmental organizations. The main idea is to better understand the struggles of indigenous peoples for self-determination by focusing on how the state, NGOs and the Mapuche people coordinate eco-tourism efforts

Improving Medication Adherence Programs with Behavioral Science

Medication nonadherence is a significant global problem that results in higher mortality and healthcare costs. There has been a recent increase in digital health companies that aim to facilitate behavior change to encourage and promote healthy behaviors, with medication adherence being a key focus for many. This paper identifies several behavioral drivers associated with medication nonadherence and identifies key components in program design where behavioral science should be considered in order to make a strong lasting impact. This paper also presents a framework for incorporating behavioral science concepts in health program design and outlines a methodology for testing and validating results. I also explore a case study identifying a digital health program that has successfully utilized behavioral science to improve program design and increase the desired behavior. The purpose of this paper is to provide a low-cost framework for incorporating behavioral science into medication adherence program design to increase efficacy in behavior change and ultimately improve individual quality of life and lower overall societal healthcare costs

Induction of the cytochrome P450 gene, Cyp6a8, of Drosophila melanogaster by caffeine

Cytochrome P450 monooxygenases (CYPs) are enzymes involved in the metabolism of a variety of endogenous and xenobiotic compounds including steroids and drugs. In insects, CYPs are involved in conferring resistance to insecticides. In mammals, CYP1A1/1A2 enzymes have been shown to metabolize the commonly consumed xenobiotic, caffeine. In addition, the CYP1A1/1A2 gene is induced by caffeine in both rat kidney and liver. Although common drugs such as barbital and phenobarbital induce CYP genes in insects, it is not known whether these genes are also induced by caffeine. In the present investigations, the effect of caffeine on the promoter of a Drosophila Cyp gene, Cyp6a8, was examined. For this purpose transgenic Drosophila carrying a luciferase (luc) reporter transgene, under the control of 0.8-kb (- 11/-766) or 0.2-kb (-11/-199) upstream DNA of the Cyp6a8 gene, were examined. Adult female flies were treated with Vivarin® containing caffeine or pure caffeine, and activity of the luc reporter gene was monitored at the enzyme level as well as at the RNA level. Different tissues of the treated and untreated female flies were also examined. Various other caffeine-related compounds were examined for their ability to induce the Cyp6a8 promoter. The results showed that (a) both Vivarin and caffeine induce the Cyp6a8-luc transgene activity, (b) transgene activity was not induced by other purines (adenine, adenosine, hypoxanthine, and uric acid) tested, (c) the 0.8-kb construct gave higher constitutive expression as compared to the 0.2-kb construct, (d) the level of induced expression for both the 0.2-kb line and the 0.8-kb line was similar, (e) caffeine induced the transgenes at the RNA level, (t) the endogenous Cyp6a8 gene was induced by caffeine, as well as, the related Cyp6a2 gene, (g) caffeine induction occurred in different tissues of Drosophila at varying levels, and (h) the highest level of constitutive reporter gene expression was found in the malpighian tubules with a 512 fold increase in transgene expression in the 0.8-kb line as compared to the 0.2-kb line. These results suggest that the 0.8- and 0.2-kb upstream DNA have sequences that can support caffeine-mediated induction of the Cyp6a8 gene. Analysis of the Cyp6a8 upstream DNA identified the presence of several putative binding sites for the transcription factor APl (Activator Protein 1). In rat striatum, caffeine treatment has been shown to increase mRNA levers of two members of APl complex, c-fos and junB, and their target genes. Therefore, we propose that a possible mechanism for caffeine induced expression of Cyp6a8 may be via caffeine-induced expression of D-fos and Jra, Drosophila homologues of c-fos and junB. Future analysis of D-fos and Jra expression in caffeine treated flies may reveal evidence to support this hypothesis

The Deans\u27 Roundtable

The Deans\u27 Roundtable

How Dynamic Brain Networks Tune Social Behavior in Real Time

During social interaction, the brain has the enormous task of interpreting signals that are fleeting, subtle, contextual, abstract, and often ambiguous. Despite the signal complexity, the human brain has evolved to be highly successful in the social landscape. Here, we propose that the human brain makes sense of noisy dynamic signals through accumulation, integration, and prediction, resulting in a coherent representation of the social world. We propose that successful social interaction is critically dependent on a core set of highly connected hubs that dynamically accumulate and integrate complex social information and, in doing so, facilitate social tuning during moment-to-moment social discourse. Successful interactions, therefore, require adaptive flexibility generated by neural circuits composed of highly integrated hubs that coordinate context-appropriate responses. Adaptive properties of the neural substrate, including predictive and adaptive coding, and neural reuse, along with perceptual, inferential, and motivational inputs, provide the ingredients for pliable, hierarchical predictive models that guide our social interactions

Utilizing multilevel event history analysis to model temporal characteristics of friendships unfolding in discrete-time social networks

A social network perspective can bring important insight into the processes that shape human behavior. Longitudinal social network data, measuring relations between individuals over time, has become increasingly common - as have the methods available to analyze such data. Adding to these methods, a modeling framework utilizing discrete-time multilevel survival analysis is proposed in this dissertation to answer questions about temporal characteristics of friendships, such as the processes leading to friendship dissolution or how long it takes an individual to reciprocate a friendship. While the modeling framework is introduced in terms of understanding friendships, it can be used to understand micro-level dynamics of a social network more generally, such as the duration of reciprocated ties (or undirected relations) and the timing of reciprocal actions. Similar to the model proposed by de Nooy (2011), these models can be fit with standard generalized linear mixed model software, after transforming the data from a network representation to a pair-period dataset. Two main models are introduced as part of the framework, and a simulation study and empirical example are proposed for each. The first empirical example concerns friendship duration in high school students and the second concerns the timing of reciprocal "following" actions on the social network site Twitter. Advantages of the modeling framework are highlighted, and potential limitations and future directions are discussed.Doctor of Philosoph